House OKs gaming deal

Wednesday

Oct 30, 2013 at 4:56 PMOct 30, 2013 at 5:02 PM

BOSTON – The revised gaming compact reached between Governor Deval Patrick and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe cleared a legislative hurdle Wednesday, as the House approved the agreement that could steer millions of dollars from the proposed Taunton casino’s profits into state coffers.

C. RYAN BARBER

BOSTON – The revised gaming compact reached between Gov. Deval Patrick and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe cleared a legislative hurdle Wednesday, as the House approved the agreement that could steer millions of dollars from the proposed Taunton casino’s profits into state coffers.

Cape and Islands legislators unanimously joined in the 116-38 vote to ratify the compact, which would take effect only if the tribe wins federal approval to take land in a Bristol County office park into trust and construct Project First Light, a proposed $500 million resort casino off Route 140.

The compact requires the approval of both the House and Senate before it can move on to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, which would have 45 days to act.

Cedric Cromwell, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council, praised the House for passing a revised compact that he said would generate at least $2.1 billion during a 20-year span while creating 1,000 construction jobs and another 2,650 permanent jobs.

“We believe this agreement keeps our world-class destination resort casino on track, ultimately providing thousands of jobs for Southeastern Massachusetts and billions in new revenue for the commonwealth,” he said.

Under the terms of the deal, the tribe would send 21 percent of its gross gambling revenue to the state as long as no other casinos are open in Massachusetts. If a casino opens as planned in the Greater Boston area or in Western Massachusetts, the tribe would be obligated to pay 17 percent of its revenue, but only 15 percent if a slots parlor opens in the southeast region of the state.

The tribe would share none of its revenue with the state if a resort casino opens in the region, which includes Bristol and Plymouth counties, along with the Cape and Islands.

State Rep. David Vieira, R-Falmouth, described the compact as a “treaty” made in good faith and said he would have supported the agreement even if Mashpee were not included in his district. But he challenged the tribe and the governor to come to the table and address another issue: the tribe’s rights to fish and hunt on ancestral lands.

“For me, the compact was really about exploring and strengthening those two sovereigns which have to coexist, whether it be in Mashpee or any other part of the commonwealth,” Vieira said. “There are still issues around the aboriginal fishing and hunting rights. ... We need to sit at the table and have that dialogue and not just focus on the casino.”

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is charged with looking out for Native American tribes, rejected a compact approved last year after deeming it too lucrative for the state without providing the Wampanoag with enough in return. When Patrick filed the second version of the compact in March, he said it addressed each of the bureau’s objections.

But the challenge of obtaining federal approval still looms large over the tribe’s pursuit of the Taunton casino.

An application to have land in Taunton and Mashpee taken into federal trust is pending with the bureau. On Wednesday, the compact’s opponents noted a 2009 Supreme Court ruling, known as the Carcieri decision, that calls into question the federal government’s ability to take land into trust for tribes recognized after 1934.

State Rep. Keiko Orrall, R-Lakeville, said the compact was a “document doomed for failure at the federal level,” and state Rep. Robert Koczera, D-New Bedford, worried that those obstacles would leave the southeast region without the job creation casinos promise.

“The southeast region should not be left out,” Koczera said. “Tribal gaming is not going to happen. Let’s not leave the southeast behind. The jobs in the southeast are sorely needed now.”

The Mashpee Wampanoag, recognized in 2007, have argued that they make the cutoff because the federal government allowed the tribe to remain on its land in the 1820s, when it was removing tribes from the Atlantic Coast. And in the early 1900s, about a dozen Wampanoag students were sent to an Indian school in Pennsylvania.

The vote came as the Massachusetts Gaming Commission begins to consider commercial casinos proposed for the region. On Sept. 27, the New York City-based gaming developer KG Urban Enterprises submitted an application and the nonrefundable $400,000 fee to launch its pursuit of a New Bedford casino, making it the only commercial bidder to file before the Sept. 30 deadline.

In a statement released before Wednesday’s vote, KG Urban principal Barry Gosin said the compact trades away hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue for “the mirage of a tribal casino that cannot be built under current federal law.”

“This compact is blatantly unconstitutional,” Gosin said, “and it is an outrageous betrayal of the citizens of southeast Massachusetts.”